


A Chapter in the Desert [fanmix]

by amoama



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fanmix, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 04:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10180940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoama/pseuds/amoama
Summary: “You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.”—	Richard Siken, You Are Jeff





	

  


 

**DRIVING, NOT WASHING**  
It starts with bloodshed, always bloodshed, always the same  
_running from something larger than yourself_ story,  
shoving money into the jaws of a suitcase, cutting your hair  
with a steak knife at a rest stop,  
and you're off, you're on the run, a fugitive driving away from  
something shameful and half-remembered.  
They're hurling their bodies down the freeway  
to the smell of gasoline,  
which is the sound of a voice saying I told you so.  
_Yes you did, dear._  
Every story has its chapter in the desert, the long slide from kingdom  
to kingdom through the wilderness,  
where you learn things, where you're left to your own devices.  
Henry's driving,  
and Theodore's bleeding shotgun into the upholstery.  
It's a road movie,  
a double-feature, two boys striking out across America, while desire,  
like a monster, crawls up out of the lake  
with all of us watching, with all of us wondering if these two boys will  
find a way to figure it out.  
Here is the black box, the shut eye,  
the bullet pearling in his living skin. This boy, half-destroyed,  
screaming _Drive into that tree, drive off the embankment.  
Henry, make something happen._  
But angels are pouring out of the farmland, angels are swarming  
over the grassland,  
Angels rising from their little dens, arms swinging, wings aflutter,  
dropping their white-hot bombs of love.  
_We are not dirty,_ he keeps saying. _We are not dirty..._  
They want you to love the whole damn world but you won't,  
you want it all narrowed down to one fleshy man in the bath,  
who knows what to do with his body, with his hands.  
It should follow,  
you know this, like the panels of a comic strip,  
we should be belted in, but you still can't get beyond your skin,  
and they're trying to drive you into the ground, to see if anything  
walks away. 

_-Richard Siken_   


**Info about the mix:**  
Ian Gallagher and Mickey Milkovich are two characters from the Shameless (US) series which I, er, haven’t watched. I accidentally fell into a youtube vid spiral where I just watched the Ian/Mickey storyline. I have watched a lot of the UK version but this is pretty different, mostly, **more guns**. As pairings go, on the scale of destructive and doomed, these two rate pretty high. Ian is a good boy from a poor, effectively-parentless household where he and his siblings have been raising each other for years. Mickey’s family is more conventionally put together but a lot less open-minded when it comes to his sexuality which he painstakingly keeps hidden (except when he’s fucking Ian with reckless abandon). He’s in the _fuck now, threaten/kill people who find out later_ closet. Ian is a little younger, a lot more idealistic, and wants way more than Mickey’s comfortable giving.

The nature of Shameless means that Ian and Mickey’s relationship has already survived jail time, gunshot wounds, Ian’s fake relationship with Mickey’s sister, and some even more gruesome recent stuff that it would probably be too spoilery and disturbing to mention. Given their issues and the way abuse defines so much of their interaction it’s highly debatable whether they’re better off together or not but so far they haven’t been able to keep their hands off each other.

This mix is a fantasy, I’ve taken the theme of _Journeys_ and imagined that at any point they got in a car and drove away from their lives. In the show, Ian’s long term plan is to become an army officer. It’s probably telling that he perceives this as one of his only ways out. For Mickey, his time at home has been described as a “vacation from juve”, if he’s ever dreamt of breaking out of the cycle he’s keeping it close to his chest. 

Richard Siken’s poem talks about every story having a _chapter in the desert_ , and if any story could use one, it’s Ian and Mickey’s, even if it was only a temporary escape. In the constricted, protected quarters of a car on a long road, there’s space for them to focus on the issues between them, on what they want from each other and how they feel about each other, rather than being battered around by their lives and their families.

  


**Song List:**

Mickey↔ Ian  
 **Give me love like never before,  
'cause lately I've been craving more,**

**Give a little time to me or burn this out,  
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around,  
All I want is the taste that your lips allow**  
1. _Give Me Love – Ed Sheeran  
_

Mickey→ Ian  
 **I’ve rolled the dice unconcerned with the consequences  
I’ve done it twice never listening to the lessons I’ve learned   
But with you, I’m just looking **

**Looking at the way you’re looking at me  
Weighing in the trouble it means   
Reading all the in-betweens **  
2. _Just Looking - Emma-Lee  
_

Mickey→ Ian  
 **Is it really safe to say that we're just made that way,  
made to brave the pain?**

**'cause I was told to get out, told to leave,  
told I have my things in the parking lot.  
no no no no no no no no no, baby  
yeah, just send me that ambulance**

**I took the worst of the blow.  
Am I gonna be alright?  
'cause i know how it usually goes. **  
3. _Ambulance – Eisley  
_

Ian→ Mickey  
 **I try to give you whiskey  
But it never do work  
Suddenly, you're begging me  
To do so much worse**

**You dream of seeing fire in them hills  
But you better wipe that smile from your lips  
Which of us will be the one to go?  
He who hits the road's the one who lives**  
4. _So Far From Your Weapon - The Dead Weather  
_

Ian→ Mickey  
 **It's a bad religion - this unrequited love  
To me it's nothing but a one-man cult  
And cyanide in my styrofoam cup  
I can never make him love me  
Never make him love me**

**I can't tell you the truth about my disguise  
I can't trust no one**  
5. _Bad Religion – Frank Ocean  
_

Mickey→ Ian  
 **Our love has never had a leg to stand on  
I want to say I'm sorry for stuff I haven't done yet  
Things will shortly get completely out of hand  
I can feel it in the rotten air tonight  
In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place  
Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell  
Like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell**  
6. _Old College Try – The Mountain Goats  
_

Ian→ Mickey  
 **You can change your shirt  
Scrub off the grime and the dirt  
Walk by the mirrors, don't look at yourself  
And pull all your sinister ways from the shelf'  
Cause you did what you did  
And you did it so well  
Say that you won't, but you'll do it again  
They could not trust you before  
And they won't trust you now**  
7. _Let’s Not Pretend (To Be New Men) - Crooked Fingers  
_

Mickey↔ Ian  
 **There's something in the way our lips touch,  
There's something in the way we're stuck together  
And they don't build love like that no more.  
You said you'd like it when the thunderstorms came,  
Said you'd like if the thunderstorm just  
Pulled you piece by piece away. **  
8. _Listen Listen Listen - Wintersleep  
_

Ian↔ Mickey  
 **The body stays and then the body moves on  
And I'd really rather not dwell on when yours will be gone  
But within the dark  
There is a shine  
One tiny spark  
That's yours and mine**  
9. _The Body Breaks – Devendra Banhart  
_

Mickey↔ Ian  
 **Spin the bottle, pick the victim  
Catch a tiger, switch directions  
If he hollers, break his ankles to protect him**

**We'll have to drive  
They're getting closer  
Just get inside  
It's almost over**

**Wake up all bleary-eyed and sore  
Forgetting everything we saw**  
10\. _Have to Drive - Amanda Palmer  
_  


  


[Dropbox](http://anonym.to/?https://www.dropbox.com/s/12leme36ippxz9i/A%20Chapter%20In%20The%20Desert.zip)   
[Box](http://anonym.to/?https://www.box.com/s/56v7ns2sms48t8jualvz)   
[8tracks](http://8tracks.com/theotheramo/a-chapter-in-the-desert)

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.”   
— Richard Siken, You Are Jeff (Excerpt)


End file.
